Dodge Charger police package, reviewed by Jay Leno

Thought that Jay Leno's comments on the Dodge Charger, as published
yesterday in the UK Sunday Times Driving/In-Gear section, might interest
some of you.

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/article2320734.ece

Text reproduced below the signature.

The price of USD 27K seems very reasonable, though it's not clear if that is
the US price or the imported-into-the-UKone.

Jay Leno is a bit of a car buff and seems to own a whole range of
interesting cars (not all mentioned in this article). He certainly has the
cash for it...

DAS

For direct replies replace nospam with schmetterling
---
There are 400 police chases every year in Los Angeles, and here everything
stops during a police pursuit. People will watch one for three, four hours
on the TV. It's basically the same chase every day and they all end the same
way: the person runs out of gas, they run out, fall on the ground and the
cops come and handcuff them. It's never that exciting but for some reason
people think it is. OJ Simpson was the first to make them popular and now
it's
become a local phenomenon. The greatest was the guy who stole the tank in
San Diego, crushing road signs and vehicles before being stopped. I guess it
makes the whole job of being a traffic cop look exciting.

Historically, there's been quite a difference in police cars, at least here
in the States. You always had a couple of types: the slowest was almost
certainly the three-wheeled Harley-Davidson Servi-Car. It was technically a
motorbike but they called it a car. They used those in the Fifties and early
Sixties, mostly for ticket writing and downtown duties like that. They were
powered by a flathead V-twin. You didn't have too much trouble outrunning
them!

Then police forces would have one or two high performance cars, like the
chief's car. A lot of them were six-cylinder Fords or the small V8 Fords
with a stick shift, no radio, no air-con, no nothing. The most feared police
cars, at least when I was a kid, were the ones the "Staties" had. By Staties
I mean the Massachusetts state troopers.

They usually ran big Dodges, like the Polara. It had the big 440
(cubic-inch) motor in it and it ran 145mph. In the Sixties and early
Seventies it was the fastest police car. Actually, the fastest of almost any
American car, with the exception perhaps of the 427 Corvette.

Related Links
a.. Dodge Nitro review
a.. Dodge Viper
a.. Dodge Demon review
In those days the cops had a two-way radio, a shotgun and sidearm. There
would be some flares in the trunk, but that was it. It's not like today
where they carry so much equipment, which makes the cars much more
cumbersome. And these Polaras were big, fast cars and pretty hairy to drive.
The early ones were mostly drum brakes all the way around. Not much stopping
power, then. The rule of thumb was, when the cop got out of the car to come
after you, since they had no air-conditioning, if he was all sweaty and you
could see the stain on his shirt, you were getting a ticket. Because he'd
just worked way too hard to catch you.

When we were kids, if you were stopped by a cop in an air-conditioned car,
he would usually just say: "Slow down, take it easy, son." But when they had
to work, forget it. Remember, a lot of these cars had no power steering, no
power brakes. It really was, and I know this sounds terribly sexist today,
just a man's car. They really were he-man cars. It took a lot of heft and
weight to fling them around. They had the big push bar on the front and they
were black and white; they looked pretty macho.

There was a TV show here in America called Highway Patrol, which starred
Broderick Crawford. The show always started with this very dramatic music
and a voiceover saying: "When the laws of any state are broken, a group of
trained men go into action. Sometimes they're called the militia. Sometimes
they're called the state police. We call them the highway patrol!" And then
more dramatic music.

Then the horns would blow and big, fat Crawford would pull up in a 55 Buick
and he would slide it in the dirt. And even though it was on dirt you'd hear
"screeee", as the tyres screeched. And he would always pick up the two-way
radio and bark something like: "We'll have this town locked up so tight, a
kiddie car couldn't get through it!"

And of course the criminals are always named Legs Somebody or Mugsy. It was
a half-hour cop show that always involved a chase. And if you watch some of
the early episodes you get to see a young Clint Eastwood playing a punk
trying to outrun Crawford and the highway patrol, which of course nobody
could do.

In those days the cop actually had to clock you and had something called a
telltale speedometer to give him the evidence necessary to pull you over.
I've
got a 1931 Henderson four-cylinder motorcycle that was a police pursuit
bike. What happened was the officer would set the speedometer to zero and
when he chased you there were two needles, a red needle and a white needle.
They would sweep concurrently, equally. The red needle would stay at the
highest speed needed to catch you. So consequently, if you were going 80,
the officer would pull you over and you would deny you were going 80. Then
he would take you over to his bike and show you the red needle on 80, and
that would be his proof.

Most cops, then and now, are pretty good. If you're not drunk and you're not
belligerent, they'll cut you a deal. Maybe they'll knock off a few miles per
hour or send you to traffic school or something.

I've never had a cop car, so having Dodge's new Charger police car for a few
days has been a hoot. It's quite fun driving this around because it's fun to
watch other people. On the freeway, if you're going 70, suddenly everyone
around you is doing 65, even though it says Dodge City Police on the side
and has a big sign saying "Out of service". Nobody actually reads the badge
on the car. Then they spot me in it and they wave, or give me the finger.

It drives really nicely. It's tight and feels stable. In the early days,
police cars would just have a heavy-duty package. Basically, the same car
with heavier springs, stiffer shocks and better brakes.

In the late Sixties, early Seventies, a police cruiser and their civilian
equivalent might have got a motor that would have an exemption sticker on it
which meant it wasn't subject to smog restrictions because it had a bigger
cam or something like that. So you got an unstrangled version of the
ordinary motor.

When my dad bought his Ford Galaxie, unbeknown to him I ordered the police
pursuit package with the bigger motor, bigger radiator and no mufflers. When
my dad went to pick up the car he started it and it went: "Urrnnghaaa!
Urrnghaaa!" And my dad goes: "There's no muffler! There's no goddamn muffler
on this car!" And they say: "But Mr Leno, you ordered the 'delete muffler'
pack on your order." And he says: "Why would I not want my muffler?"

"But Mr Leno, here's your order. Muffler delete." My father was so furious.

When we were kids and you bought junk cars out of the junkyard you always
tried to buy ex-police because you knew you were getting a big motor. It
might be worn out but you could fix that. When we were kids, for $500 you
could get a car with a black body and white doors and no numbers or markings
on it that would be only two years old with 280,000 miles on it. But they
were fun. Just drive them around all day until you blew them up.

The new Charger isn't as big as the old police cars. They were enormous and
were based on the big Chrysler chassis that was in the Chrysler 300 and the
New Yorker and all those. In fact I have just taken it to Burbank police
station for the officers to check it over and the one comment most of the
police had was that it was small. It looks small to them because if you're
carrying a couple of felons and a trunkful of gear you need something that's
a pretty good size. They liked the cupholders and places to stash doughnuts,
though.

This one is a pretty good choice for a police car. The Ford Crown Victoria
is an old platform and has been around for a long time. By comparison with
the current Crown Vic, the Charger is compact, but that's cars in general.
It's not small. The space inside is better used than a car 20 years old.
Other ways have been used to make it more efficient. In the past, cars had
the big, high lights up in the roof, which cut about 10-15mph off the thing.
Now you have those low bars, which are pretty aerodynamic.

The Charger has got four-wheel disc brakes and handles and stops probably
better that any police car in history. It's just more of a balanced package.
In the old days they would increase power to the engine by 75-100% and
everything else, including brakes, would be increased by 10-15%.

European cars are not used in the States for police cruisers. But as far as
European cars go, any of the big Mercs or Audis would be good. But you don't
really need four-wheel drive in California.

The handling of the Charger seemed pretty good. For a big American sedan it
handled well. I think the Charger benefited from the union between Daimler
and Chrysler. Obviously they picked up a few suspension tricks from
Mercedes. It feels solid and the brakes seem impeccable. The acceleration
seemed quite good too. I think it would be a great high-speed pursuit car.
It was tempting to flick on the lights and siren.

Even without the light and "whoop whoop" on, it had the desired effect.
After a while I sort of forgot I was driving something that looked like a
police car. There was one guy across the street that looked sort of like a
criminal and he didn't actually look at the car. He didn't make eye contact,
which I thought was weird. I guess he thought it was a police car and I was
a real cop.

You know, this could get addictive.

Vital statistics

Model Dodge Charger Police Package

Engine 5654cc, eight cylinders

Power 340bhp @ 5000rpm

Torque 390 lb ft @ 4000rpm

Transmission Five-speed automatic

CO2 n/a 0-60mph: 6sec 148mph

Acceleration

Top speed Price $26,930 (£13,423)

Rating ( no star if you're a crook)

Verdict Put your hands in the air

 

That's a neat article. Thanks for posting it.

Deep inside the Allpar.com website are some articles by Curtis Redgap.
Mr. Redgap's family was a Chrysler Corp dealer in the 1950s and later.
One of the articles details the performance of the mid-50s Dodge Police
Cars in the CHP tests.

Seems that Dodge/Chrysler started to use metallic brake linings on their
police cars back then. He noted that the Dodge made it through the
brake test with flying colors (and brake drums that were glowing red
hot). Then they reran the tests again, and it still stopped as good as
it did before. Another victory for Chrysler Engineering! His articles
are great reading, too!

Allpar.com also has sections devoted to "Chrysler Squads", too. There
are also two excellent books on Chrysler Police Cars, divided by model
years . . . one prior to about 1978 and one for the more recent years.
BOTH excellent reading, too!

In the earlier model year book, lots of interesting information on CHP
cars and what made them unique and desired. In the later book, there's
a chapter about the turbo fwd "test" cars . . . which never really made
it, but were out for testing with certain police groups. Then the
"unofficial" Intrepid police cars, before Chrysler did them on the 2nd
Gen LH platform to compete with the then-new Chevy fwd Impalas.

Enjoy!

C-BODY